Gun Ban Comments Swamp Secretary of State

05.11.18

Your response to the ballot title language for gun confiscation measure IP 43 has been unprecedented. The Secretary of State received over 1500 comments on the misleading and incomplete title language created by the anti-gun Attorney General which attempted to downplay the scope and dangers of IP 43.

Congratulations on a job well done. We have a long fight ahead of us but a message has been sent. Thank you. But we are not done yet.

As we have reported previously we now need you to make your voice heard on another equally dangerous ballot measure, IP 44.

Under IP 44 you would be a criminal if you kept a firearm next to your bed for home protection at night and went to the bathroom while your spouse slept.

Under the guise of “safe storage” it would hold you strictly liable for damages done by others with a firearm you transferred, lost, or had stolen from you for 5 years unless you could prove the gun had a “cable or trigger lock” or was stored in a locked container at the time of the transfer, loss or theft.

It’s blatantly absurd to suggest that a person you transferred a gun to would be any more or less likely to misuse a firearm for 5 years simply because you delivered it with a removable “trigger lock.” It is even more bizarre to imply that if your gun was stolen it could not be misused because of a flimsy “cable” for five years!

When you make your comments please address the failures of the ballot title language, not the language of the measure itself. The ballot title includes the “caption,” the summary and the effects of both a “yes” and “no” vote. You can comment on any or all of these components.

Keep in mind that while you will be addressing your comments to the Secretary of State, he did not write the ballot title language. Our anti-gun Attorney General did.

When you make your comments be sure your name is included. Identify yourself as an “Oregon Elector” (voter).

Based on the Heller decision , the ballot measure is almost certainly unconstitutional. In Heller, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court’s opinion :

“The requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

Clearly, given the scope and potential liabilities, this language falls well short of advising voters what the measure does.

Under this measure even temporary or momentary “transfers” like handing a firearm to a friend at a range or using an instructor’s gun in a class would require the firearm be disabled each time it was handed to another person. The same is true of guns you might handle at a gun store.

There are no exceptions for displays of antique firearms even if there are no ammunition components available. There are no exceptions for historical or educational displays or museums.

Section 6 (2) says :

For purposes of sections 1 and 3 of this 2018 Act, a firearm is under the control of a person when the person is lawfully authorized to possess the firearm and the person is in sufficiently close proximity to the firearm to prevent another person from obtaining possession of the firearm.

This is vague and subjective and provides no real guidance for how far away a person has to be away from a firearm before he or she is breaking the law. Nor does it explain exactly what responsibility a person actually has to prevent another person from “obtaining possession.” Do they just have to be there?